Sod Off

Imagine it is one of the very first beautiful and warm days of Spring. The air is crisp the sun is shining, a light jacket is slug over your shoulders. What to do with this little gift?

Lets break out our gas powered two stroke unfiltered unregulated air and sound pollution generator! (your lawn mower)

The notion that we are obligated to manicure a perfect lawn and that we shall sacrifice our free time, our health and the peaceful day is madness. Why can't we breathe deep and enjoy what little time we have.  Forget about this antiquated show of wealth to impress the feudal surfs, they aren't.

There are over 10,000 species of grass on the planet; 12 are grown most as lawns in the US. This trap is easy to fall into, the store only sells that many. Lawns are an agricultural practice after all; sprawling mono-crops tended and fertilized. The difference is there is hardly a yield. Grass as a crop is very wasteful and ultimately useless. More resources are poured into and on grass than any other crop, some 10,000 gallons of water each summer for a lawn the size of a small motel room. Grass is a $28.9 billion dollar business. With 32 million acres across America covered with turf grass, companies like Jon Deere, Scott's, Husqvarna, Bayer, amoung many others rake in the green and drive the demand for more grass related products. They, or their subsidiaries manufacture massive amounts of herbicide, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and what they call outdoor homeowner power products.  Agricultural educational institutions are endorsed by "big grass" and farmers are trained by them. You see there is no interest in the effects of these products and a complete lack of third party oversight to do anything. Do you think the EPA or any government agency has the power or resources to test, regulate, or control the production or sales of all lawn chemicals? Your lawn added together with the millions of other quarter acres plots amounts to nothing less than a chemical disaster. How many of us even understand the first thing about these chemicals? While you consume these products there are people profiting and that is all they intend to do.

Chemicals are cheap and necessary to keep a lawn looking so unnaturally green.  Many chemical fertilizers are derived from petroleum!  To keep your lawn green you add nitrogen (N), because nitrogen is an element found in the chloroplasts of plants. Your body expels nitrogen as a waste product in urine. Along with nitrogen, urine is a good source of phosphorus (P) which is vital for root growth and flowering. Inorganic fertilizer that contains phosphorous is mined out of the ground. What I am saying is - piss on your lawn; save the planet, or at least a few bucks. Does it seem like I'm joking?

Every self respecting town has a municipal landscaping crew that goes around to parks or roadsides to mow the lawns, if pouring poison on it is inconvenient. Again this is a losing battle, plants will always fill an empty niche. That's our tax dollars at work. A monthly dousing of poison only effects us in the end. I hope that lawn care companies won't be upset with this message. I believe there will still be plenty of work for them to do without grass lawns. I envision a future with grass alternatives, which still need care. The difference is they will require less resources because these alternatives will be adapted to the environments in which they are planted. Really all we need is for people to start changing their preconceptions of grass and the lawn.

Signs of Spring

Snowdrops

Crocus

If you build it they will come

Seriously they will, it is in the frog's nature to migrate from one waterhole to the next as populations grow. They search for fresh hunting and mating grounds by hoping away from their spawning pool when it begins to rain. Frogs are not the only species that will be attracted to your pond. If you abstain from chemical treatments you can wonder at the lives of larval insects, snails, dragonflies, even waterfowl. There should be little concern of the mosquito population becoming a blight if there are frogs, dragonflies, fish and birds to keep them in check.

You will notice a fair amount of aquatic plants, of which I intend to add more. They are an essential part of the ecosystem that will make the pond itself a living organism. Lilly pads shade the water keeping it cool in summer. Algae loves warm water. The water hyacinth floats on top of the water and has long hair like roots which sift out nutrients. It should be said that water hyacinth is illegal in many southern states because it clogs up waterways. Up north it dies with the frost. I can't say it is 100% safe to keep it up here either. There is the faintest bit of duckweed which I didn't try and introduce, some times even plants just show up.

home made frog pond

 Making a pond is easy, dig a big hole in the ground.  I use mine as an aerated cistern of sorts, it is also a habitat for aquatic life. I fill my watering pale here and lug it around to water my plants. It's a good workout and well worth the effort of installation.

I dug my pond by hand, with a little help from friends. There was no realistic way to get a small backhoe down to the location, it would have ripped up the yard. There was a lot of dirt in this hole, luckily I had a place close by to put it all.

To create my waterfall I started by "cutting steps" into the hillside. To achieve a nice spillway the steps can be cut so that they angle back, water is collected at the posterior and then advances in a nice stream. I laid down a long rubber liner to keep water from simply soaking into the hillside, with a much shorter waterfall I could have created the same effect. For successful waterfall steps you might size some of your stones before hand, with patience an acceptable stacking can be accomplished. Back-filling the stones with gravel or sand gives the water a chance to work its way over the surface of your spillway instead of behind. Water may duck in and out, which is fine, the look is very natural. As time passes the flow of the water has changed direction a few times as an area is filled with sediment. A pond is always evolving. Keeping water in bounds is the trick. I have found the best way to accomplish this is to place rocks under the edge of the liner, account for this when deciding on a width of liner and an amount of stone.

Supplied by friends I began to bring in cement blocks. Zach and I brought a few blocks down the hill at a time on snow sleds even though it was summer. I measured up the hole, calculated for the number of blocks, then after making alterations she was fit and ready for construction. During this process it was important to remove sharp rocks that could later puncture the liner.

I decided that I would dry stack the blocks. There was going to be water on one side and earth on the other. This turned out to be a good decision as it saved time and money in construction and made the pond less permanent. Stacking the blocks was an arduous operation. Lay the blocks so that the row above was centered between the two blocks below. In other words we offset by half a block so that they lock together. The concrete blocks made it possible to have a half raised pond, I do like the style but it has some drawbacks. It can be difficult for animals to get in and out if you do not create an exit ramp.

Next I added some landscaping fabric, then a liner as the blocks were stacked to the intended water height. Along the front side that would not be getting a few more layers of block, I put cap stones atop the rubber liner to hold it in place. Those sides which were to hold back the hillside got another three or four layers of block . They were then capped as well.


The truth is that I don't like the rubber liner one bit. It is an unnecessary solution that has been developed by pond salesmen. A pond can retain its water if the soil is compacted enough and contains enough clay. This is accomplished with a mechanical tamper, or even by hand.  If I had known better I would have never bought the rubber liner, besides it was the biggest expense in making of the pond. In time leaves will fall in your pond and do the same job as the liner.

rain catchment system work in progress

Water will evaporate and leak from any pond, every once in a while it is nice to top it off without resorting to city water. The issue is that a pond without an inlet doesn't continuously gain water as a natural pond does.This 275 gallon rain barrel can raise the water level on my pond a few inches. Barring severe drought or a huge leak I do not anticipate ever having to use municipal water. Water that comes in though pipes has contaminates, a long list of them really. Most water treatment includes chlorine to kill bacteria, but it just so happens that a healthy pond includes bacteria.  Before the rain barrel was added to my system I often had a low water level which one rain event could not raise. I have essentially added the surface area of my garage to the amount of water that can be funneled into the pond.

Raising the barrel up a bit helps the flow of water.  Situated near the downspout saves in costs for extra plumbing. A good start anyway. More on rain-barrels in a later post.

In the beginning I kept skimming the leaves and little particles that fell onto the surface of my pond, by hand, trying to keep it pristine and perfect. In the end it really was a waste of time. You won't catch everything and eventually it will build up on the bottom, like any natural pond. My pond is situated underneath a very large old apple tree that still produces apples. This has been an unintended benefit as apples that fall from great heights into the pond don't get bruised or explode into a million pieces and are fit for eating. The pond acts as a mirror,  reflecting sunlight back up into the tree giving the underside a little extra light.

National Arboretum: part 1 Bonsai Bonanza

Dwarf Japanese Juniper
1975

Kurume Azalea
1982

Japanese White Pine
1855

The Art of Zen Gardening

I can't say enough about breathing. All living things breathe. Breathing techniques are simple to learn. For me, deep breaths of the fresh morning air are fantastic, they wake me up and heighten my senses. Keeping my breath in balance, exhaling as long as I inhale, I think of the deep recesses in my lungs that are inactive with shallow breathing and I try to fill them. I don't force air in just fill as best as I can. I make sure that the air is pure before doing this, pollutants are everywhere and can't be avoided even in the garden. With air as pure as can be obtained, rich oxygen fills the blood vessels and flows out to the entire body relaxing and energizing muscles. You only need to use this technique a few times to feel its effects, remembering to do it is the hard part. 

Gardening has to be done with the body and the mind. Breathing is a good way to connect the two. Stretching is a good way to start working with the body. I will admit to not enough stretching. First thing in bed is the ideal place to start your stretching, it is the time of the day when you are first engaging your body. Pretend you are a wild cat waking up from a nap, you want to feel long and powerful. I might suggest even before starting to do laborious tasks in the garden that you begin a stretching regiment. A limber body is one that is less susceptible to injury. Our necks and hamstrings are typically the tightest, why not start there. My back and shoulders become tight after a long day of gardening, I am often rolling my shoulders around. Keeping the body moving helps it from seizing up.

Gardens should not be all work and no play. It is very easy to spend hours toiling in the garden, to be so focused on your work that everything around you is forgotten. Eventually you will look up, at this moment remember to take it all in, the sights and sounds will fill you up leaving a lasting impression. Create spots in your garden just for relaxing. A hammock, a meditation mandala, a water feature, are all great physiological aids in relaxation. All you have to do is clear your mind and let nature do the rest. Easier said than done. Taking a moment to do nothing is hard and actually takes practice.

Meditation and gardening go hand in hand. Putting all our efforts into design and implementation defeats the purpose of having a garden. That is why if we sit in our gardens they will be more alive then if we constantly manipulate them. The frog in the pond knows nothing of the great ocean. I have observed frogs sitting in the same place for hours content to soak up the sun when it shines on them and to enjoy the cool waters. What pressing matter does the frog have?

In a garden where your needs and the needs of the living system are fulfilled harmony is a state of mind. Escaping to your garden is only a breath away.